Agricultural work machines, such as combines, are employed in the agricultural industry for various tasks, including harvesting crops. During harvesting operations, typical such agricultural work machines move through a crop field while operating a header at the front of the work machine to cut the crop. Once cut, the agricultural product, e.g., grain, is removed from the non-grain crop materials by threshing, separating and cleaning assemblies on the work machine, and then transferred to the work machine's hopper for temporary storage.
At various times during harvesting operations, such as when the work machine's hopper is full, the operator of the work machine will unload the agricultural product from the work machine using a cantilevered unloading system that is mounted on the work machine. Typically, the agricultural product is unloaded via the unloading system into a recipient device, such as the trailer of a tractor-trailer or a mobile hopper wagon, e.g., tractor pulled, which delivers the agricultural product to a storage facility or another transport system. At times, the recipient device may travel beside the work machine during simultaneous harvesting and unloading operations.
It is desirable that the reach of the unloading system extends beyond the width of the header, for example, so that the agricultural product may be conveniently delivered to the recipient device without undue maneuvering of the work machine or recipient, and to reduce the need for a tractor trailer to drive directly onto the field being farmed, which may result in undesirable soil compaction.
In order to improve farming efficiency, the width of modern header units are increasing. However, extending the reach of the unloading system to compensate for the increased width of the header may result in negative impacts, such as increasing the weight of the work machine by adding new structure and/or adding material thickness to existing structure to support longer unloading systems, etc. The increased weight of the work machine would contribute to the undesirable soil compaction.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved work machine and unloading system for unloading an agricultural product from a work machine.